Ben Affleck's Argo, review

Ben Affleck's new film Argo is a tremendously accomplished thriller, writes Robbie
Collin.

We live in post-authentic times, and Argo is an ideal film for them. Ben Affleck’s tremendously accomplished thriller about a hostage extraction from Tehran, 1979, begins with the vintage Warner Brothers logo of that period, rather than the studio’s familiar golden shield. We then cut to the title card, which is covered in dust and scratches – digitally added, of course.

Argo has not just been influenced by the films of Seventies America; it wishes it was one of them. Affleck’s picture trades in the same wit and grit as a Sidney Lumet or Alan J Pakula thriller, to say nothing of the wide collars and facial hair. Talent borrows and genius steals, but Affleck does something in between: he mimics.

This phony authenticity is doubly fitting, given that Argo is based on a true story about a fake movie. During the Iranian diplomatic crisis, the CIA rescued five US diplomats by passing them off as members of a Canadian film crew who were scouting locations for a nonexistent science-fiction film. The mission was declassified in 1997 and was later described in a magazine feature, which in turn was adapted into a screenplay by Chris Terrio. This made its way to George Clooney, who took on the project as producer and sought out Affleck to direct. Perhaps he was impressed by the rigour of Affleck’s first two films, Gone Baby Gone and The Town, or perhaps it was a favour. Either way, good call, George.

Affleck also takes the central role of Tony Mendez, the hirsute CIA staffer who cooks up the diplomats’ cover story before flying in to personally supervise the extraction. In Hollywood, he enlists a make-up artist (John Goodman) and a grizzled producer (Alan Arkin) to put his fake film into production, thereby generating paperwork, storyboards and sundry media hoop-la to convince the Iranian authorities that all is above board. After much rooting through piles of unmade scripts, they buy the rights to a faintly ridiculous Star Wars wannabe called Argo. “If I’m gonna make a fake movie, it’s gonna be a fake hit,” Arkin snorts.

Terrio’s fast, tight dialogue sends up the film industry at every turn, but it’s done with an obvious insider-ish affection that will play well with film buffs in general, and Academy Awards voters in particular. “You want to come to Hollywood and act like a big shot without actually doing anything?” Goodman asks Affleck when he first moots the plan. “You’ll fit right in.” Rarely do serious films allow themselves to be this funny, and given the results here it’s hard not to wonder why: Argo’s thriller and comedy elements work together deliciously well.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the two sustained thriller sequences that bookend the film, both of which are liable to transform your insides into something resembling a diagram from an encyclopaedia of knots. In the roaringly confident prologue, Affleck gives us the white-knuckle thrills of the storming of the US embassy, but only after setting Iran’s fury in its proper historical context – an unexpectedly responsible touch.

He betters this with a terrifically taut final act, where smart cutting between the unfolding escape in Tehran and the behind-the-scenes panic in Washington heightens and complexifies the tension, like an ever-tightening cat’s cradle. For all its artifice, Argo turns on a simple truth: it’s a thrill to be treated like an adult in the cinema, even when you’re there for a hell of a good time.